A BUDGET hotel room, an ­unlicensed medical practitioner, illegal ­injections – and a girl lays dead thousands of miles from home.

Claudia Aderotimi took a gamble with her looks and paid with her life.

Desperate for curves like Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian, the student from London spent £1,120 and flew to Philadelphia for a “Brazilian butt boost”. But the operation went terribly wrong.

Aspiring actress Claudia died after 12 hours of breathing difficulties. She was two weeks short of her 21st birthday.

Her tragic death exposes the dark and deadly business of scalpel tourism. Sadly, that business is booming.

A Mirror investigation has found that of the 100,000 Brits who travel abroad each year for operation vacations, many have endured cut-price backstreet ops and near-fatal side effects.

Buttock enhancement – or gluteoplasty – is not yet common here, so many patients go overseas for the operation. Often it has been left to UK plastic surgeons to fix problems with botched procedures.

Even so, the demand for bum implants – which in December 2009 claimed the life of former Miss Argentina, Solange Magnano, 38 – has shot up among young women keen for the “bootylicious” bodies of Nicki Minaj and Beyonce.

Former Sugababe Mutya Buena recently paid £5,000 for bum implants.

She said: “I researched it a little while ago. Everyone’s got it in the US and Brazil. I just wanted it a bit perkier.”

Last year, advisory service Treatments You Can Trust was launched to link patients with qualified providers in safe premises. It predicts that the demand for all injectables – including face fillers – will rise by 45% in 2011. That equates to 1,450,000 treatments in the UK alone.

But many patients will be lured abroad by the prices. Bum implants cost £2,500 in Brazil – they’re twice as much here.

Just like Claudia, Andrea Lee and Kia Teagle took a cut-price route to achieving their goal of having a fuller bottom.

Two years ago the friends paid a non-qualified practitioner a vastly reduced sum to have illegal silicone ­injections to enhance their buttocks. Hours later they laid side-by-side in intensive care, close to death.

Two years on, medical assistant Andrea, 30, recalls: “While I was in intensive care a doctor pulled my mum outside to talk to her. I saw her crying. They had told her to start making funeral arrangements.”

BOTCHED

Andrea, who is 5ft 10in and 15st, adds: “I just wanted a bigger butt because I’ve got big thighs and 42DD breasts and felt there was something missing.”

So when Sharhonda Lindsay, an acquaintance of 10 years, offered to inject Andrea’s buttocks with a water-based solution called Hydrogel, she was tempted. When Sharhonda offered to inject her friend Kia too, at a 75% discounted rate of £450, Andrea was sold.

The knock-down price also convinced nightclub promoter Kia, 34. She says: “There was nothing really wrong with my figure. I just wanted to fill out my jeans, to feel more attractive. Getting a Brazilian butt lift is the thing now.

“But within hours of the injections my mother and father were by my hospital bedside, shocked at the severity of my condition. I’ve never seen my father break down before. He thought he was going to lose me. And he very nearly did.”

Andrea’s home in Tampa, Florida, had been the makeshift hospital, her bedroom was the operating theatre. Sharhonda drew a felt-pen heart on Kia’s tailbone to mark where she would inject her 20 times over 45 minutes. Andrea’s buttocks were injected 40 times.

Soon, both suffered dramatic and debilitating side effects – and Sharhonda left with her money.

Kia recalls: “I could feel my head exploding. I ran to the bathroom and diarrhoea and vomiting started. The room was spinning and my whole body shook.

“The next thing I was in hospital. Andrea was in the next bed. We had complete organ failure. We are lucky to be alive.”

Sharhonda was charged with two counts of practising medicine without a licence and got four years probation. But Kia says: “I’m furious with Sharhonda. We still have no idea exactly what she put into our bodies – neither do the doctors. They think she may have used some sort of industrial strength silicone.

“I still feel dizzy and light-headed. I get exhausted quickly and have frequent blackouts. I have to avoid stressful situations because of my high blood pressure, another result of the botched operation.

“Worse, I can no longer sit down for long periods. I have lost my independence.

“My advice to women is: don’t have cosmetic surgery. You never know what the outcome will be. You’re taking a chance with your life. It’s just not worth it.” Andrea feels the same way. She says: “I wish I’d never had it. I have two massive lumps in my bottom and lots of bumps.

The lower half of my body still aches. I have to sit on a cushion and take painkillers. I also need blood pressure medicine, which makes me nauseous. My bum is the same size as it was before. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to celebrate what you have.”

RISK

Many industry experts are calling for new laws surrounding non-invasive surgery. Currently anyone can administer Botox and fillers. Botox is licensed and must be obtained by a prescriber but fillers can be bought online. In theory, anyone on the high street could do an eye-lift, mini-facelift or lip enhancement.

“It’s terrifying,” says Lesley Reynolds Khan of Harley Street’s Skin Clinic. “Salons and dentists offering surgical procedures are trivialising treatments like Botox and fillers. And patients are putting themselves at huge risk by trusting people who have little or no medical training.”

She adds: “Some fillers are permanent. We are seeing patients with lumps in their faces that need to be surgically removed because tissue has grown around them after they’ve been incorrectly injected.”

Sally Taber of Treatments You Can Trust also warns: “If somebody goes into shock, a dental nurse or beauty therapist will not have the same skills as a doctor.

“From Botox parties in bedrooms to dermal fillers in sheds. We are continuously shocked at the places in which people are happy to have treatment.”